Author: Janet Gershen-Siegel

Let’s Look at Stellar Stowaway

The idea of a stellar stowaway is kind of irresistible to me. And I may revisit it. But not necessarily as a continuation of, or a prequel to, this particular plot.

I wrote this story during the first quarter of 2021.

Background

The original prompt was the word miracles. I had done enough bible fan fiction (hello, The Field Gleaner and The Great Cleanup!), and I wanted something different.

Well, I sure as hell got something different.

Plot for Stellar Stowaway

Characters

The characters are the narrator, their unnamed benefactor, and the other members of the alien crew.

Memorable Quotes

I really didn’t think anyone would make it out of there alive. And for it to be me? Well, that’s just weird. I am not ungrateful; it’s more that I’m just kind of puzzled.

I have no idea if any other humans got out. And I realize I have probably leapt from the frying pan to the fire.

For this is a ship, and it’s moving, and I have no idea where. When I was a kid, I got lost near Trevi Fountain. I was terrified I’d be lost on an unfamiliar continent, forever.

Now, I may end up lost in another star system, and maybe forever.

Rating for Stellar Stowaway

The story has a K+ rating. Nothing terrible happens to the narrator. But all along, you know that it just… might.

Takeaways

The fact that someone is helping out the narrator is of course a cause for some hope. But the rest of it is just weird. To me, right now, it just kind of falls flat.

Ah, well, they can’t all be great. Although a species that looks a lot like Ken dolls could be… interesting. In an uncanny valley sort of way, that is. Eek!

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Let’s Look at Frozen Fortress

Frozen Fortress may very well be related to some memory of the film, On the Beach. The one with Ava Gardner and Fred Astaire, not the one with Rachel Ward.

It’s probably also a small bit about the 1980 film Virus, where a small number of survivors are living on an ice station.

I wrote this story during the second quarter of 2021.

Background

The original prompt word was icicles. I originally thought of Hitchcock, but also about what it would be like if we had to fight an enemy, but we couldn’t light anything on fire.

Plot

When the planet is invaded by aliens who love the heat, the people of Earth scramble to try to figure out some way to repel the invasion. When virtually every weapon is based on heat and fire, options are scarce.

Characters

The characters are the nameless narrator and their colleague, Jack Slade.

Memorable Quotes from a Frozen Fortress

When I joined the research station on the shores of the Ross Sea, I expected it would last for maybe two years at most. I never expected it would be for the rest of my days. Or anyone else’s, for that matter. Yet here we are.

The invasion started at the equator. They liked the heat—it was obvious. It took a while for the Earth’s governments and military to figure out how to at least try to use that data to our advantage.

But it’s hard when your main options are fire-based. The first time we nuked them, they just came back all the stronger. It was as if we had sent them a gift basket, or a catered meal.

We had no real way to propel anything frozen at them. An ice bullet? It all just melted.

I came here originally to study penguins. Now we’re fighting to stay alive and afloat.

Rating

The story has a K+ rating. While the story is technically about war, there isn’t a lot of that on screen.

Takeaways from the Frozen Fortress

I think the premise to this one is pretty sound. It just kind of stops cold (no pun intended, I swear!).

So, this could very well be the kind of story I could do something with in the future. Hmm…

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Let’s Look at The Field Gleaner

This story, The Field Gleaner, is kind of a little bit of biblical fan fiction, I guess you could call it. But unlike in The Great Cleanup, the narrator is on her own. I based her on Ruth. But she’s not quite Ruth, not really.

I wrote this story during the first quarter of 2021.

Background

When I was in Hebrew school, one of the few things I can recall learning was about gleaning. It was essentially an Iron Age form of charity. A landowner would deliberately not harvest a certain amount of the crops and leave them for the poor people to pick.

The original prompt word was linear.

Plot of The Field Gleaner

The main character has a kind of employment, where she picks wheat for the owner of the fields. Newly freed from bondage, she has no other skills and no other prospects. All alone, she’s just doing what she can to survive.

Characters

The characters are the unnamed narrator. But I based her on the biblical matriarch Ruth.

Memorable Quotes

There is a straight path, and it leads to fields. I pick wheat for the owner. And, in return, he lets me glean. For I am poor, you see. It wasn’t until very recently that I stopped being a slave.

My labor is hard, but at least it ends at night. The women who are married, I know their workday is just getting started when the sun goes down. There are husbands and children to feed, and floors to be swept.

But me, I sleep under the stars. It’s often cold. I’ve been rained on more times than I can count.

But I am free, and I sweep no one’s floors.

Rating

The story has a K rating.

Takeaways from The Field Gleaner

I like the narrator’s optimism. Because even though her life is clearly rather difficult, she still manages to find some areas where she’s better off than others. This measure of grace allows her to find gratitude, even under trying circumstances.

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Let’s Look at I Trade This For My Life

If I recall correctly, the original title for I Trade This For My Life was Message Me If You Want a Samovar. But then I realized I liked that one better for the name of a section of Babel 2.0.

In addition, I didn’t want the absurdity of the Samovar title to detract from the more serious tone of the piece.

I wrote this story during the first quarter of 2021.

Background

This short story did not have an original prompt word. At least, I do not think it did.

My main idea for this one was the whole Anna Anderson bit. The idea of anyone having survived the shooting of the Russian royal family is, well, preposterous on its face.

But the story persisted, probably because it was catnip for editors of tabloids searching for a juicy story.

For the imposter’s part (her real name was evidently Franziska Schanzkowska), she was convincing to some. But for others, she was likely a useful idiot. At least, that’s what they may have thought.

And so, during her life, she received some information on the royal court. This was from people who were, most likely, hoping to get in on the rumored missing fortune of the Tsars.

As a result, Schanzkowska was able to sound convincing to a lot of other people. And so, the rumors persisted. Schanzkowska seems to have crashed on a lot of famous people’s couches.

But not everyone believed this almost real-life Talented Mr. Ripley.

Plot for I Trade This For My Life

Since the real Anna Anderson was inevitably shown to be a fraud, this story either serves as pure fiction or as a bit of how she fooled so many people for so long.

Characters

The characters are Anna Anderson (who was allegedly Anastasia Romanov) and whoever she is talking to.

Memorable Quotes

They say it’s a revolution, but I know it’s really just an angry mob. They pounded on doors, broke through windows, and grabbed anyone and everything they could.

My father. My mother. And my sickly little brother. My sisters. All gone.

Rating

The story has a K rating.

Takeaways for I Trade This For My Life

What I’ve got right now isn’t much of a story at all. Rather, it’s a lot more like a fragment. Could I really do something with it? I suppose I could. But then again, the fiction might end up nowhere near as fascinating and strange as the fact!

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Let’s Look at Brown Eyes are the Law

A bit of Brown Eyes are the Law comes from remembering Jane Elliott’s experiments.

I wrote this story during the second quarter of 2021. The prompt word was tawny.

Background

Let’s get back to Jane Elliott for a moment, shall we?

Ms. Elliott is a diversity trainer. People probably know her best for a 1968 experiment done with schoolchildren. In response to Martin Luther King, jr.’s death, she divided the class into students with blue eyes, and those with brown.

Then she proceeded to tell the blue-eyed children that they were better in every way.

After IIRC a few days of this, with the class at each other’s throats, she finally ended the experiment. It was essentially a way to give a group of people who were in a homogenized group an experience they would not normally have.

The experience? What it’s truly like to be discriminated against.

In this story, I decided to pursue this thought experiment, but with a twist.

The conformity would be to some ideal that wasn’t white.

Plot

In a world where everyone must conform, or else, blue eyes are a surefire ticket to the slammer if nowhere else.

Characters

The characters are the unnamed narrator in the first section, another unnamed narrator in the second, and possibly a third in the third and final section.

Memorable Quotes

Thank God I’ve got a doctor who’s discreet and understands. Colored contact lenses. Time under a tanning lamp. Hair dye. Bronzer. Of course, the only thing that really counts is eye color, but the rest of it helps to bolster the illusion.

See—and don’t tell anyone, else it would be the ruin of me—I’ve got illegally colored eyes. I know, I know. it’s supposed to be impossible these days to have eyes that are any color but a kind of medium tannish brown. Tawny eyes for all! Just like our beloved leader. But, unfortunately for me, some of us are just born throwbacks.

Yes, yes, we’ve hidden it my entire life. And I wouldn’t normally say anything, but you’re in the predicament I was in. Or, rather, your newborn baby daughter is.

I’m from the underground. I—well, we, actually—can help. Never mind how we learned of your predicament. There are some people who have access to the right places, and the right files.

Yes, yes, I am well aware that newborns all have an illegal color. But it doesn’t always go away. Your genetic profile, and that of your wife? Those have been melded together. So, it was known that there was a chance your child would be cursed. Naturally, her genetic profile is in the records. But a few keystrokes, and it’s forever altered.

No charge. Seriously, we only do this to save lives, and as a small form of protest. All we ask in return is that you keep it a secret, and that you help when you can.

Me? My criminal color is a grayish blue.

Rating for Brown Eyes are the Law

The story has a K+ rating. The prose isn’t harsh at all, but what I am writing about sure as hell is.

Takeaways for Brown Eyes are the Law

The Twilight Zone has done this kind of story. And undoubtedly so have other franchises. I have no doubt writers will write this scenario again and again. Why? Because the premise is both fascinating and disturbing.

And who would you prefer being, anyway? A person with the right eye color (or skin tone, or name, or religion, etc.), who gets to push the others around? Or the one with the wrong kind, whose life is in danger but maybe (hopefully!) is more humane?

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Let’s Look at Escape from Alien Mines

The idea for: Escape from Alien Mines is essentially right there in the title.

I wrote this story during the third quarter of 2021. However, I did not finish it until the second quarter of 2025.

Background

The prompt word was the name Xavier. Heh, there aren’t a lot of X words for prompts. But this one seems to works all right.

Plot

Xavier has been a miner all his life, on an unnamed planet or moon or asteroid… somewhere. He is the umpteenth generation of human slaves, continually moving ore from place to place and doing very little else.

Complicating matters is the fact that, much like in the Matrix series of films, his nutrition comes from a tube in his stomach. He has no memory of eating or drinking in any other manner.

Utterly dependent on the overlords, he can’t conceive of a reason to ever leave, until he meets Amy. Amy comes from an independent camp of humans on the outside. She’s tasted freedom just as much as she’s tasted real food.

Characters

The characters are prisoners Xavier and Amy. Her sister is also in the story. And so are their invisible, yet demanding overlords.

Memorable Quotes

My first memory is the mines. Every day, it’s all the same stuff. Chop. Grab. Haul.

And then hand over whatever to our taskmasters. They push and pull, and we give them everything we have. We always have.

I assume I had parents. I suppose we all do… or did. But I never knew mine.

I don’t know if they even knew each other. Beyond… you know.

And here you come, Amy, offering me a way out. But we both know it’s impossible. We’ve been here too long, and we’ve been captive slaves for far too long. You come in here preaching freedom to me.

It all sounds very fine and nice to me. But that word has no meaning.

Rating for Escape from Alien Mines

The story has a K+ rating. The language is fairly tame, but the situation is pretty grim to start.

Takeaways for Escape from Alien Mines

I like this idea, and I think it has some potential. In reality, I may very well end up cannibalizing it for a part of the third Obolonk trilogy.

See, folks? Nothing is ever wasted.

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Let’s Look at Leave Your Tone at the Message

When I was writing Leave Your Tone at the Message, I may have been subconsciously thinking of the film, Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

I don’t honestly know. What do you think, sports fans?

Either way, I wrote this story during the first quarter of 2021.

Background

There was no actual prompt word for this particular short story. I just liked the transposing of words in this title.

Plot for Leave Your Tone at the Message

The story, such as it is, is more of a short vignette about how the human race made first contact with a species we have dubbed the Bachians.

Characters

The characters are just the narrator, who is apparently some sort of a researcher.

Memorable Quotes

Music, it is said, is a universal language. But we never really knew that until we made first contact.

When the Bachians—not their real species name, of course, but we human types started calling them that, and the name stuck—when they arrived, they seemed to be harmless, friendly, and polite. They were everything we could have ever dreamed of from an alien species.

But no one had a clue as to how to talk to them.

We started with pictograms and gestures. It was a lot of, “Me Tarzan, you Jane.” They seemed to pick up some of that, and they even did some passable imitation of human speech.

Rating for Leave Your Tone at the Message

The story has a K rating. It is more or less the very definition of wholesomeness!

Communications are an Issue

Of course, we haven’t, as a species, had this particular experience yet. But when we do (and I firmly believe that we are anything but alone in the universe), make first contact for the very first time, it is going to be awkward and messy.

And I cover that in both The Enigman Cave and in the Obolonk/Time Addicts prequel, The Dust Between Our Stars.

After all, how do you talk with an alien race? I think the best way is to kind of do a thought experiment and compare them to talking to a foreign human. But let’s make the experiment difficult, shall we?

Let’s assume tomorrow scientists find a tribe in the Amazonian rainforest that has never been seen before. Complicating matters, this tribe isn’t even composed of modern humans.

Rather, it’s a group of Neanderthals who somehow made it to the present day, who originated where they are.

That last line is important, folks!

So, they don’t have our cultural touchstones. They don’t have a history of our great migrations, either, seeing as they got into position long before modern humans traversed a land bridge between modern-day Russia and Alaska. And they didn’t cross Europe or Asia or Africa, either.

More Issues With this Hypothetical Tribe

As primitive people, they may not have the wheel. They’d have spears and maybe bows and arrows. They would wear skins and live in caves. So, we could possibly connect to them on those things.

There are also the things which we all have in common. Our overall look, but also the sky and the like. They probably have a name for the big orange thing in the sky, just like we do.

But otherwise, their language is probably rather sparse by our standards. And it doesn’t have familiar Indo-European or other roots.

With these limitations, we may still be able to convey information about nouns (just point) and verbs (just act them out). Some obvious adjectives, like big and little, have clearly associated gestures. But what about adverbs? Does it make sense to the tribe to differentiate between big and very big?

If you really want to throw a wrench in things, have our tribe evolve so their mouths are no longer in the normal place. Don’t laugh!

One of these days, we’re going to try to talk to an alien species, and we’ll end up addressing them directly at the equivalent of their armpits.

#awkward

Takeaways for Leave Your Tone at the Message

First contacts are always fraught with meaning, and they can easily be made the stuff of high drama. But this tiny vignette will need a lot of work to get it up to snuff.

Still, the premise is a decent one. Maybe someday, I will revisit this one.

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Let’s Look at African Escape

Originally, I had thought of African Escape as being a kind of prison break or a breakout from a POW camp. But after leaving it for over three years, I came up with a somewhat different, darker plot. Although the ending is somewhat hopeful.

Somewhat. Kinda.

I started this story during the third quarter of 2021. But I didn’t finish it until the second quarter of 2025.

Background

The original prompt word was Zanzibar. But I honestly had no idea what to do with this prompt (even though I was the one who wrote it, heh). I even had to look up where Zanzibar is on a map.

FYI, it’s an island in the Indian Ocean, and it’s part of Tanzania. Because it’s around 22 miles off the coast of East-Central Africa, paddling a boat there isn’t too unrealistic. But it’s just south of the equator, so it’s hot there a lot of the time.

Plot

Doctoral candidate Alicia Price has just started wrapping up a trip to Tanzania to find fossilized artifacts of the oldest humans ever. Her guide, Vic Van Maas, isn’t exactly one for doing everything perfectly legally.

And so, it comes as no great shock when Tanzanian residents start to object to their taking the artifacts.

Complicating matters is Alicia’s lover and mentor, Dr Philip MacLachlan, who sent her on the trip in the first place. And when Vic is killed as they try to flee with the artifacts, Alicia has to find a way to get back home to Philadelphia, preferably with the fossils.

Dr. MacLachlan is in Philly. But so is his jealous wife, Hazel.

With a clever talent for being able to assume just about any persona she can think of and putting on a fake name as readily as some people put on their shoes, Alicia just might make it.

Maybe.

Characters

The characters are Alicia Price, Vic Van Maas, Dennis Van Maas, Dr. Philip MacLachlan, Hazel MacLachlan, Godfrey Achebe-Makamba, Dr. Rose-Lynn Carter, and Captain Myron Juma. There are also Vic’s ex-wife Laura and their daughter, Kim.

Memorable Quotes

Once she was released, Alicia got herself a room at the smallest, cheapest, and most out of the way guest house she could find but could still walk to the beach. Her sole task was to retrieve the duffel. Returning to the scene, she found fishermen loading trawling nets onto a decent-sized motorboat. Alicia hiked up her skirt, wrung her hands, and did her best to play dumb tourist.

She approached the oldest guy she could find. “Excuse me, sir, but I was wondering if you could help me, please?”

“With what, Miss?”

“Well, it’s a little embarrassing, see.”

“I have no need to judge you, Miss…?”

“Marcia Ferndale.” Just in case you and my old pal Godfrey are buddy-buddy. “I was on one of those boat tours of the channel, you know the ones I mean?”

“Yes, of course. My first wife, she of blessed memory, used to work as a guide on those tours.”

“Oh, well, I am sorry for your loss, sir.”

“Captain Myron Juma.”

“Captain Juma, then. I had my duffel with me, and I was holding onto it. I really should be more trusting. It’s from living in cities for far too long, I believe. Anyway, I was holding it and leaning over the side when I spotted sharks! It frightened me so badly, that I dropped my duffel right into the channel.”

“Goodness, how dreadful,” said Captain Juma, but he didn’t sound convinced.

Rating for African Escape

The story has a K+ rating. There’s an onscreen death and a couple occur offscreen.

Takeaways from African Escape

Alicia isn’t Superwoman. She’s just trying to get from one point to another and then another. But just like a cat with nine lives, she kept coming up with a solution and landing on her feet. Does she finally make her African Escape?

Maybe.

Want to find out? You’ll have to read the story, of course.

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Let’s Look at Uninformed

A few years ago, as a sort of a dedication to any number of uninformed opinions masking as debate, I wanted to gather them all up. I was hoping to be able to just laugh at their absurdity.

But now? Now, I’m just more or less permanently dismayed at the state of public discourse.

Please, somebody help me, or my face will freeze into a snarky, skeptical, one eyebrow-raised mess.

And, frankly, I fear the same fate awaits many of us, as this kind of dreck continues to take over.

I wrote this story during the third quarter of 2021.

Background

The original prompt word was just the word that became the title.

Plot

Without too much of a plot to speak of, this ‘story’ is more of a collection of conspiracy theories and internet in-jokes taken far too seriously than anything else.

When I wrote this story, these so-called ‘theories’ were already the hallmark of the easily duped. But now, a few years later? These are almost tamer examples of the genre.

After all, who wants to tell folks that raw milk, ivermectin, and essential oils are nowhere on the same planet as effective treatments. Particularly when we have vaccines, which are actually effective.

But you, reader, I’m sure you were already well aware of all of that.

Characters

The characters are never truly named. But it should be relatively easy to spot the kinds of people they are.

Memorable Quotes

“The earth is flat. It’s just like a big old pancake.”

“Australia? Not real.”

“The earth is what, 6,000 years old?”

“Birds are a myth.”

“Contrails are poisoning our air with mood-altering chemicals.”

“Fluoride is destroying our water.”

“There’s no such thing as climate change.”

“Evolution is a myth.”

An Uninformed Rating

The story has a K rating. I suppose it’s really saying something when you realize that many conspiracy theories are truly dangerous. But for the most part, these are kind of tame.

Comparatively speaking, that is.

Takeaways for Uninformed

With today’s fairly constant bombardment of more and more aggressive ‘suggestions’ to use AI in every aspect of our lives, it is fairly well obvious that this kind of misinformation will just spread even more rapidly.

And with the current administration pushing fringe conspiracies and deleting or hiding discourse that does not agree with them, things are only going to get worse.

Put the two together, and our civilization just might be running, face first, into a buzz saw.

Now, there’s an image for ya.

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Let’s Look at Skating

When the human race really gets onto thin ice, we may end up realizing that skating was to blame all along. But this form of locomotion has nothing to do with ice or roller blades. Rather, it’s performed on air.
I wrote this story during the first quarter of 2021.

Background

The original prompt word and the title are the same word. Rather than write about hockey or the like, my brain decided to take a bit of a left turn. Sorry, not sorry.

Plot

While there isn’t too much of a plot here, the bottom line is the narrator can see the nasty endgame which a supposedly marvelous new invention may lead to. She doesn’t want to help usher in our eventual demise and returns the product.

But, of course, there are billions of people who do not share her sentiment. Hers is but one small voice against a roaring tide. And that should be kind of troubling to all of us, I would say.

Characters

The characters are the unnamed narrator and their grandson.

Memorable Quotes

I don’t even know why it’s still called skating. It’s more like hovering. Fast and slow hovering.

It’s an intriguing invention. Because your shoes never touch the ground, you could technically keep the same pair of shoes for decades. It’s only fashion or preference or growth—or, I suppose, dieting—which would make one ever want or need to change.

No more high impact walking or running, so our all-too fragile knees and ankles get a break.

No touching the outside ground, so there’s no need for sidewalks. When the larger version for cars comes out next year, there won’t be a need to ever pave a road again. I suppose we’ll keep some form of pathways and signage. Otherwise, we’d all become perpetually lost.

Rating for Skating

The story has a K rating. While the language is utterly fine, the end of humanity should give the reader at least a little pause. God, I sure hope so.

Takeaways for Skating

I really love the idea that something that could seem innocuous and even (perhaps) wholesome could lead to our eventual end. I wrote this story long before AI so much as existed.

But if you want to see it as being about artificial intelligence, well, I will not be the one to stop you.

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If this story resonates with you, then I hope you will check out some of my other blog posts about my shorter works.

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